


a white knight ready for a noble deed (the birth of tragedy)

by haipollai



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Breaking Tony, Emotional Manipulation, Evil Steve Rogers, M/M, Physical Abuse, Rape, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 05:38:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's kept in a room with no windows, behind a solid door. There are no guards footsteps to count off. Nothing to tell him the time. They feed him at irregular times. The lights stay on, dim enough he can sleep with them on, but enough to fill in the room. Not that there's much to see in there. Only four walls and a cot.</p><p>No sheets, just in case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a white knight ready for a noble deed (the birth of tragedy)

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a verse where Steve is the bad guy and it is very fucked up created between myself and beardsley with some fun additions from caughtinanocean and lanyon. The archive of everything else written is over [here](http://troublesteady.tumblr.com/post/42217854504/masterpost-sometimes-the-bad-guys-win), including a snippet focused on Tony's capture, but it isn't necessary to read this.  
> Title is from Abney's Park song 'Death of a Hero'
> 
>  
> 
> **THERE IS RAPE IN THIS, IN CASE YOU MISSED THE OTHER WARNINGS. TONY IS RAPED.**

He's kept in a room with no windows, behind a solid door. There are no guards footsteps to count off. Nothing to tell him the time. They feed him at irregular times. The lights stay on, dim enough he can sleep with them on, but enough to fill in the room. Not that there's much to see in there. Only four walls and a cot.

No sheets, just in case.

He supposes he could use his shirt. But the idea of killing himself doesn't appeal to him.  
He is left there to sit and rot in his own mind. Telling himself over and over that they're looking for him. They'll find him. Rhodey and Stane and Pepper. Everyone back home.

Even the mysterious Captain has to fuck up sometimes and Tony Stark tells himself that this is it. Kidnapping him is the fuck up. The US Army won't leave him in enemy hands, he knows too much. They'll find him, and they'll tear this whole building down.

He doesn't know how much time passes before the Soldier pays his first visit. The few times someone's brought food, it's been some faceless lackey. Alcohol withdrawal hits at some point, and he's left a shivering wreck and the food is left untouched. He screams for a fucking drink but none ever comes.

Tony's heard about the Soldier from Rhodey. No one knows anything about him except he's brutal, almost zealous in his torture. Most people who meet him don't survive. Tony's not going to be among that number and throws himself at the Soldier, trying to force him off balance and get past him. He hasn't planned past getting into the hall, but it's a start.

The Soldier coldly throws him to the floor and quickly follows him down, straddling his stomach. One hand wraps around his neck and the other, cold metal, breaks his left pinky finger. He hisses in pain and tries to squirm away but the Soldier breaks the ring finger.

"I'll go through each one until you stop, even if that's boring," he says, voice as cold as his hand.

"What the fuck are you?" Tony snarls, his voice raw from before.

"I'm the monster that keeps you up at night," the Soldier's voice drops to a pleased murmur. "The one you keep on designing weapons to kill. Pity the army got you first. But you're ours now."

"Fuck you."

The Soldier laughs and Tony feels terror clench in his stomach.

-

James Rhodes gets himself assigned to the taskforce trying to hunt down the Captain, all to find his best friend.

(Temporarily under Sharon Carter, soon to be replaced by Carol Danvers.)

Steve thinks it's sweet, in a pathetic sort of way.

-

"James is not very good at cleaning up after himself," a woman appears in his line of sight and kneels beside him. Her voice is refreshing after the Soldier and his games. "Though in all fairness," she continues, carefully lifting Tony's hand into her lap. "It is not something he must bother with often. Usually the mess serves it's own purpose." She bandages his hand, forcing each finger straight so they won't heal crooked.

Tony chokes back a sob each time she does it, but soon she finishes with his hand and moves to the cuts left on his stomach, neatly stitching them up. "Why the hell are you doing this?"

"Because, the Captain has a use for you. He wants you alive."

He laughs and it comes out raw and bitter. "And how the fuck did a nut job like the Captain get a lady like you at his side?"

There might be amusement in her eyes but it's hard to tell. Maybe he's just desperate for human contact. "Maybe one day you'll earn that story." She kisses his palm and stands.

"Help me escape, please." He hates himself for the desperation in his voice but he feels raw and exposed. He's at the mercy of the merciless and all he can think about is how badly he wants whiskey. "I can give you anything you want, name your price and I swear to fucking god it's yours. Just get me out."

She looks at him like an ant. "You can't give me what I want."

"How do you know? Please, please. I need your help." He's begging, he's never begged for anything in his life and these people have reduced him to that so easily. His hand would be shaking if it weren't clenched around her ankle. He wipes at the sweat on his forehead, forgetting for a moment that his left hand is broken and mangled and hisses at the pain.

"Because, Mr. Stark. I want to see the world burn." She frees herself easily and leaves him behind in the unchanging light.

"They'll find me! My friends will find me!" He screams as the door closes, locking him in again.

-

They become his pattern. The only pattern he has. First the Soldier with his pain metal and then Natasha with bandages. The Soldier does what he wants to Tony. He tells him over and over that the Captain won't let him have any real fun, how disappointed it is that he has to let Tony live. All because of the Captain, his precious Captain.

When it's Natasha's turn, she tells him about how the Captain has uses for him, how he wants Tony to live. That when Tony is ready, he'll get to invent anything he wants again. He just has to cooperate. She tells him about cold winters in Russia and disappointment in the powers that be. How they betrayed her.

Over time, as he lies there broken after another beating, she gets him to talk about his parents. About Howard. About Stane’s moves on his company. About being left and abandoned and betrayed, and supposed friends who still haven’t found him. She kisses him and says he can get revenge for all of that. He just has to do one thing.

Join them.

-

The first time, the Soldier pins him to the bed and Tony is so weak compared to him, it takes no more than a hand between his shoulders. Even as Tony tries to fight, to get him off of him.

It's not enough.

The Soldier tells him, between grunts, that it's his own fault. He can't kill Tony, and he's bored with everything else.

He's left with his pants around his knees and come and blood on his skin.

The Captain himself shows up this time. He carefully lifts Tony off the bed so some random lackey can replace his mattress with a clean one.

"Why are you doing this?" Tony snarls as soon as he's set down again, pushing himself away from his captor.

"I need a scientist," he shrugs. "I wanted the best." He smiles but it's not a nice smile. It doesn't reach his eyes. "Stop fighting me, Tony."

"Call off your fucking dog."

"Prove to me you're mine." Steve's knuckles caress his cheek and then he's gone.

The second time, the Soldier takes more time. He handcuffs Tony to the bed frame to free up his hands. He licks along Tony's spine and he never touches Tony's cock but he's half hard by the time the Soldier has a finger inside him.

The sex still hurts, the Soldier doesn't prepare him enough and he still bleeds afterwards. He bites Tony’s shoulder. “There’s no shame in wanting,” he murmurs against his skin. Then he’s gone and Tony is still half hard. As the door starts to close, Tony sees a flash of blue and blonde and Steve shoots him a smirk. The door closes on the Captain kissing his Soldier possessively.

Natasha laughs when she finally comes to him, still tied to the bed and trying to mentally will away his erection.

"James forgot to clean up after himself," she purrs, fingers sliding over his side. "Didn't he."

-

He wakes up in a hospital bed. The sunlight through the windows makes him flinch. After a few minutes the door to his room opens, and he looks over expecting Natasha or Steve or even James.

But it's only nurses.

They buzz around him, checking all his vitals, commenting about what good shape he's in after everything.

Then Rhodey and Pepper are pushing their way in and hugging him and saying how good it is that he's back. Rhodey assures him he never stopped looking, not once. They were going to destroy the Captain for everything he did to Tony.

Tony doesn't tell him that the only thing the Captain really did was make sure he was fed and his mattress was clean. The cut to his cheek is healed over and forgotten. He makes himself smile and tells them to get him out of the damn hospital first.

-

He stares up at the ceiling, trying to sleep in his own bed. They tell him that it's been weeks. That he's safe now. He ends up sleeping on the floor, the bed is too soft. And when he still can't sleep he buries himself in his lab and works.

He creates a program designed to hack into and destroy the US Army's newest purchase, his very own Jericho missiles.

The door to his lab opens and he turns, praying that it'll be who he wants to see.

"Hi, Tony," Natasha purrs, leisurely making her way over to him and stopping just within reach. He longs to reach out and touch but that's not the pattern. She touches him, he's usually too broken to return the favor.

"Why was I released?" He demands, hands tightening into fists. He's angry and he doesn't even understand why, but he fucking misses them. The pattern of it all, even the pain.

"To see if you would find your way back to us." She sets down a flash drive on his desk. "Bring toys. Steve likes new toys."

He opens the flash drive as soon as she's gone, and spends the rest of the night hacking the encryption. It comes up with an IP address that he traces to a location in Brooklyn.  
Tony stares at it, until his eyes burn. 

He sits on it for days. Agonizing over what to do with it. He knows in some rational part of his mind that he should turn it over to Rhodey or someone. Someone official who can take this and track down the Captain and destroy his organization. Pepper hovers around him but it becomes clear that his company is no longer his. Stane has seen to that and he took her with the company.

Tony sleeps on his floor and dreams of watching Stane burn.

He isolates himself from everyone and everyone has their own lives to deal with anyway. With each day that passes he misses the steady pattern more and more, he misses Natasha’s laugh and James’ touch, even when it hurt. He misses mattering enough for someone to try and hurt him, instead of just letting him drift away.

Steve likes toys she said, and he knows what the Captain wants from him. Tools to destroy the world. To make it burn.

He copies the program he created onto the flash drive. Thinks about all the power there.

He sends out an email that says good bye as he walks out the door.


End file.
